


If you kiss your true love he will die... Again

by weepingwillow



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pushing Daisies Fusion, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 19:29:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12239229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingwillow/pseuds/weepingwillow
Summary: Two years ago, Blue Sargent discovered that if she touches a dead thing, it comes back to life. Now, with her mother's revelation about who her father was, this power will change her life.





	If you kiss your true love he will die... Again

Blue Marshall was eighteen years old when her mother decided to tell her the strange circumstances of her birth. Long story short, it was pretty weird. But it was far from the weirdest thing about her.

 

I should give this a bit of context, I suppose. Two years previously, Blue had found out something that would change her life forever. Something that everything she had ever learnt told her shouldn’t happen. Something that was true, regardless.

 

Her mother and her uncle ran a little cafe, not far from the local private school in her home town of Henrietta. Aglionby, the school, was a stone heap of a building, surrounded by other, lesser stone piles that made up the senior dorms. It seemed designed to resemble some old English ancestral home and frankly, with the old stone covered in ornate ivy and flowering creepers, with the old trees that bathed the drive in shade, it succeeded. Next to it, the Marshall family’s cafe with its quaint wooden painted facade looked nothing short of shabby. Blue loved it, though. She loved how the paint peeled in the winter and her uncle painstakingly repainted it each spring. She loved the old school little cake stands her mother set up on the counter each day. She loved the book club that came in, every other Tuesday afternoon, that would still be bickering on when she came back home from school. She hated the pink frilly apron that her mother made her wear when she was working waitressing shifts at the weekend, but that was the exception to prove the rule.

 

They didn’t make much money in the cafe. It was close to Aglionby, but far too uncool for any of the raven boys - so-called for the embroidered motif on their jumpers - to ever come in. They were the only people in Henrietta who really had enough money to be throwing away on overpriced English tea on a regular basis, so the homey little room they operated out of was busy only on Parents’ Day, for the book club, and some mornings when a local mothers’ meeting used the place as a mom-friendly creche. This was a fact that Blue had reconciled herself to a long time ago, a fact that she didn’t mind much at all. She wasn’t exactly alone in her lack of disposable income at the state school, and she didn’t really have many friends to provide the need for cash. She worked her shifts at the cafe, and she walked dogs for a few of the book club ladies in the week for money for thrift shop clothes and knitting yarn.

 

It was that last job that showed up the problem. The dog walking one. One of the ladies, a Mrs Abbot, had a very poorly trained cocker spaniel. She doted on the poor thing so much that he wobbled when he walked, but still he managed to be disobedient and difficult. Blue was walking the dogs back from their circuit around the park when it happened. He slipped his leash, and he ran.

 

Straight into the path of an oncoming car.

 

The driver, to her merit, stopped. She was gushing with apologies, looking on from the roadside while Blue told the other dogs to _stay_ and ran over. Even two years later, she remembered her reluctance, kneeling on the tarmac, to touch the dog. It - because the dog was an _it_ , now, not a he - it was covered in blood. Blue knew she had to get the stained carcass back to Mrs Abbot, so she reached out, grabbed a chunk of fur. The next thing she knew, the blood was gone. It was like the dog had inflated with life again, at her touch. He barked, and continued on his path of escape.

 

Blue stared at her hands, horrified, not wanting to touch anything ever again.

 

“Oh my god,” the driver cried, loud enough to break through Blue’s shock, “I thought I hit it!”

 

“He must have ducked between the wheels,” Blue said dumbly, standing in the middle of the road, hands held away from her body.

 

“He must have done,” the woman agreed, but when they looked there was a large dent in the bumper of her offroader that put the lie to that.

 

Exactly sixty seconds after Blue had touched the dog, a single raven fell from the sky, and landed in the middle of the road.

 

\---

 

She didn’t know that it had been sixty seconds then, of course. The timings had come with experimentation. Because Blue’s curiosity had been enough to overcome the fear of what she had done. The dog had been dead. And then, at Blue’s touch, it had been alive again.

 

The rules went like this, she thought. She would touch a newly dead thing. Sixty seconds later, if she did not touch it again, it would stay alive and another thing or things, of a similar size, a similar energy, would take its place. Even that was not the end of it, though. Because if she touched the thing again, past its sixty seconds, it would return to its original dead state. The other life caught up in the exchange, the sacrifice, would remain dead.

 

So Blue did not like to use her weird, well, _power_ for want of a better word. She knew that no good came of it, and she had yet to find a dead thing she wanted to make alive enough to risk the cost.

 

She quit her dog walking job. She told the book club ladies that she wanted to focus on school. They fussed and they fiddled with her hair and they told her that she was a sensible girl. The real reason was that she didn’t dare to touch Mrs Abbot’s dog again.

 

Really, though, she supposed that they were right. She was sensible. Underneath her messy dark hair and her ripped and remade clothing, there lay a normal, sensible heart. Normal like her mother and her uncle’s cafe. Safe, comforting. Some people would have played around with her gift. Not Blue Marshall.

 

\---

 

Skip back to the day of Blue’s eighteenth birthday. She’d nearly graduated high school, and she had absolutely no idea what she intended to do with that. She wondered idly if it might just be easier to make herself into some sort of travelling show. _Marvel at the girl who brings dead things back to life._ She always laughed when she thought about that. No one would ever believe how she did it.

 

They lived above the cafe, Blue, her mother, and her uncle. They had separate rooms, though each of them was barely big enough for one person and their possessions. Blue’s was filled with remnants of her past, her childhood. Painted patterns from stippling through paper doilies from the cafe were covered by crepe paper forests, painted stars, Sharpie calligraphy song lyrics. It was like an archaeological investigation of Blue’s life, pasted to the walls. Blue felt that she should have felt embarrassed by it, but didn’t.

 

Marshall family tradition held that on the morning of somebody’s birthday, the others would crowd into their room and present them with their gifts. It was far from a solemn event, and Blue looked forward to it, despite the fact that since she hit puberty her uncle would hover uncertainly in the doorway to check that she was decent before coming in. Like she would ever find that weird. Her uncle was the closest thing that Blue had to a father.

 

That was, until that morning.

 

This time, it was only Blue’s mother who came in through the door, and her expression wore none of the usual birthday festivity cheer. Instead, she worried her lip with her teeth, and she looked nervous.

 

“This year,” she told Blue, “I want to give you something else before you get your presents.”

 

Blue sat up in her bed, sheets pooling in her lap. Something was definitely off, here.

 

“What is it, Mom?” she enquired. Her mother smiled weakly.

 

“I never knew the right time to tell you,” her mother said, “And you never asked, so it never came up. And I think- I think it’s time I told you about your father.”

 

Blue listened attentively. She was pretty certain that this was the first time that those words had come out of her mother’s mouth in that order. _Your father._ For all Blue knew, she might as well not have had one.

 

“What-” Blue spluttered, a little lost for words, “What is there to tell?” Her mother reached out for her hand, and Blue let her take it.

 

“It’s more a case of something to show, really,” her mother admitted. “Come on, you’ll need to get dressed, and then we can leave.

 

Her mother drove her up into the mountains, and they parked on a gravel turn-in by the side of the road, shadowed by a thick canopy of trees. Blue regretted her airy dress and sandals - the air was lighter there, colder, and she had to wrap her arms around herself. Stones kept getting caught in her shoes. But her mother walked on regardless, like she was in a sort of trance, caught up in her memories. She hurried after her mother into the shadow of the trees, about to call out to her, to ask her to wait, when she felt it. It stopped her mid-step, and she gasped.

 

There was magic here. Magic, like what she did with her touch. She’d never felt something that made so much sense before in her life.

 

Her mother had stopped, turned, and was looking at her.

 

“You feel it too?” All Blue could do was nod.

 

“This was where he took me, before he disappeared. Your father. This was his explanation.”

 

“What is this place?” Blue asked.

 

“I don’t know,” her mother told her, and there was sadness in her voice, Blue thought.

 

“Who was my father?”

 

“His name was Artemus,” Blue’s mother said, and she smiled a little, “I’m not sure that even he knew much else. He brought me here, and that was his explanation. He was caught up in this place somehow. All the strange things that came with him, came from here.” Blue was quiet, looking around herself. She knew that this was important. She could feel it.

 

“Come on,” her mother said, “Let’s go a little further in.” Blue started forwards, laying a hand on her mother’s arm.

 

“Mom, I think I need to do this on my own.”

 

Her mother gave her a searching look, then nodded quickly.

 

“I’ll wait in the car. Take as long as you need; time feels different here, and call me if you need anything.”

 

“I will,” Blue said, and she kept walking.

 

She felt, more than anything, as if she was being drawn, as if there was a cord somewhere around her navel that was tugging and tugging, and as she kept walking she noticed more strange things. Like the light, and how it was fading, but she could swear the sun was moving back to the east.

 

There was a sound, too, like the wind through the trees, that kept getting louder. A rustle, a whisper. Except, and here was where it made no sense, that there wasn’t even the slightest breeze.

 

She picked her way over tree roots, pushed through the leaves of low ferns. She could hear water, trickling not far away. She didn’t look for it. Something in her knew where she was going.

 

And then she was in a clearing, the trees thinned away to reveal the sky. A track wound up the hill and away, to her left. In the middle of the clearing was a car, rusting around the wheel arches, a young tree pushing its way through the engine and out of the propped-up hood. It cast a long shadow over tall grass. Blue trailed her fingers through the dirt and the leaves on the windshield, and she wondered if it was her father’s or if, a thought that horrified her already, someone else had been here.

 

Still, she pushed on. She knew that there was something else for her, somewhere deeper in the forest.

 

Quiet crept over the forest like a layer of snow, muffling sounds. It grew steadily darker, until Blue had to pull out her phone for the torch. She noted, with shock but without fear, that there were no bars of signal. Not even an _emergency calls only_ on the display. Nothing. But she felt perfectly safe. If this place had made her, surely it would not try to kill her.

 

It was so dark that she barely noticed it when she left the cover of the trees again. She stopped at the edge of the tree-line, lingering for a reason that she couldn’t quite understand, at least not in her conscious mind. Slowly, she raised the torch light.

 

There were two figures, lying in the middle of a circle of white stones, Hansel and Gretel. And they weren’t moving.

 

Blue didn’t even think about it. The forest had brought her here, had brought her back in time, it felt. She had her power, and it was needed. She rushed forward, and she touched them both.

 

One instant after the other, the life breathed into both of them.

 

“Adam!” One of them, the darker haired one, screamed at the other, shaking him as they stood. He seemed to be able to find nothing more to say, though, because he looked around them and he frowned at Blue, who was quickly retreating, before looking back to Adam.

 

“Did it at least work?” he asked, “This isn’t-”

 

They exchanged a look. Blue watched them with a level of amusement that even she found strange.

 

“Excuse me,” Adam requested - in his soft southern accent it _was_ a request - “But we’re wondering who you are.”

 

“Blue Marshall,” she said.

 

“Adam Parrish,” he told her, stepping out of the stone circle and holding out his hand, “And Gansey.” Blue felt the panic rising in her at his proximity, and she backed quickly away.

 

“No closer!” she said, “Please! If you touch me you’ll die. Again.”

 

\---

 

After that there was quite a bit of commotion. The understandable confusion and then, just as Adam and Gansey were starting to wrap their heads around the concept of their death and their resurrection, two deer trotted into the clearing and promptly collapsed within the stone circle. That raised a few questions.

 

In all the shouting and the panic, Blue’s questions about what exactly they were doing in the middle of the forest at night got lost, low on their list of priorities.

 

And then the boys were exhausted, and Blue knew she had been in the forest for too long for her mother’s peace of mind, so she started to lead them back through the forest.

 

“Wait,” Gansey said, and Blue bristled. There was far too much entitled authority in that voice. He pointed to the west.

 

“This way gets us to the road faster. I’ll drive you to wherever you need to be.” Blue rolled her eyes. She was lucky it was dark, no one could see. Adam jostled Gansey’s arm and spoke up.

 

“The time,” he said, “I think we need to go back the way Blue came in.” He was so gentle, but Gansey obeyed him.

 

“You’re right,” he groaned, “We shouldn’t risk it.” Blue bit her lip and wished she could help them. They were both clearly exhausted, but she couldn’t risk touching their skin. They would be worse than tired if that happened.

 

It was a hard walk. The trees and the bushes dragged on Blue’s clothes like they wanted to keep her there. The rustling came again, and Gansey stopped, mouth working like he might be able to understand what was said. Adam stopped beside him, and Blue turned to watch them, hoping that the magic wasn’t in vain, that they weren’t about to collapse on her again. Adam looked at Gansey quizzically and then, which struck her as strange, to her. It was only then that Blue realised that Adam couldn’t hear what she and Gansey could. Which made no sense at all.

 

Gansey must have realised mere moments before Blue, because he was reciting the sounds, clumsily, to Adam.

 

_Hic creata, ne hinc discedat._

 

It was Latin, Blue knew, but beyond that-

 

“She who was… made… here,” Adam translated, forehead frowning in a way that Blue tried her very best not to find endearing, “Should not leave here.”

 

Blue folded her arms and looked around them.

 

“And who exactly is saying that?” she asked. Gansey was the one who answered.

 

“The trees,” he said, “Ronan said it was the trees.”

 

Blue didn’t comment on the mention of another boy.

 

“Well you can tell them to mind their own business,” she said, aiming it into the leaves, “I have a life, I have a Mom, and I’m going back to them.” Adam laughed at that, a shocked thing, and Blue turned to look. That was another thing she shouldn’t like. Not when she’d just brought Adam back to life.

 

She should be running as far away from him and Gansey as possible.

 

And that was what she told herself she would do. She’d get her mother to drive them back to the town and she’d see them on their way and then avoid them at all costs. That was the sensible thing to do. And she was nothing if not _sensible_.

 

The light grew as they walked, and the way became easier. Blue did not think for a second that the trees had listened to her words, but she did find herself tripping less often. The boys were tired, worn out by the resurrection and by whatever they had been doing to get themselves killed. Blue told herself that she didn’t want to know what that was. She didn’t ask. And then.

 

“So what were you doing all the way out here with your death-reversing magic? It’s a pretty big coincidence, don’t you think?” Blue kept walking. It was true, it was a huge coincidence. But she didn’t want to engage the boys in anything like speculation. She just wanted to get them safe, get her responsibility for them over and done with. Plus, she really didn’t like the way that Gansey had asked, searching, like he was entitled to any information she could give. Like he hadn’t been refused before.

 

“You’ll wonder about what brought me here, but not the weird time changing thing? Or the trees who talk?” Blue glanced back to see his reaction. He looked a little abashed, to be fair to him.

 

“We know why they happen,” he said. And Blue really was tempted to ask, but instead she stood still for a moment, weighing up the advantages of knowing, and the disadvantages of knowing them.

 

“Has it occurred to you that it might be down to the same thing?” she snapped, “Or, you know, just a coincidence?”

 

Gansey shook his head quickly.

 

“I’ve learnt, in the last few years, that nothing is a coincidence here.”

 

Blue huffed at the authority in his voice.

 

“Of course,” she said, letting the full force of her sarcasm into her voice, “Now will you two stop spending your energy on thinking, and just keep walking?”

 

Adam gave Gansey a look, one of those that seemed to say whole sentences, and stepped closer to take his shoulder, share his burden. Blue liked that far more than she knew she should. She wished she could help more.

 

The forest got lighter, as they walked. The pinks and golds of dawn, the bright yellow light of the morning. After a while, the trees thinned, and Blue ran ahead to tell her mother about the two boys she had found in the forest who needed a lift back to their car. It was only when she turned to make sure they could follow that she noticed what they were wearing.

 

There was a raven on each of their jumpers. Aglionby boys.

 

\---

 

Blue’s mother made an executive decision. The boys were far too tired for either of them to drive, so she bundled them in the back seat and took them to the cafe. There was all the cake and lemonade they could consume until they had enough energy to walk back home for their sleep. Blue hurried her way off upstairs. She couldn’t have anything to do with them.

 

“I don’t know why we never tried this place before, Mrs Marshall,” Gansey’s voice floated up the stairs to her, “You make the most incredible cake.”

 

Aglionby boys. So that was where the entitlement in Gansey’s voice came from, and the obvious use of his surname. He was a rich, boarding school boy. It was just Blue’s luck to find two of those sort to save. Or perhaps it was good luck, that Blue wouldn’t want to see them again, so would have no reason to worry about an accidental touch.

 

Except for Adam, because he didn’t quite fit the mould. When Blue had last seen him he’d been trying to insist to Blue’s mother that he was fine, he didn’t need feeding, and that it was time they stopped leaning on her hospitality and went home. Hardly the arrogant, self-absorbed rich kid. And there was a softness in his accent, hints at a southern drawl. He could almost be a local. Blue stopped herself wondering, though. There was no good that could come of her finding out more about them.

 

\---

 

Gansey crossed his legs and sat on the floor amongst his cardboard model of Henrietta. It was late, the tiny city moonlit, and in the silvered light he hunted around for something to do, something to fix. His nighttime project had been going for years and was about as complete as it could be. He’d be leaving school soon, and probably Henrietta, and he wondered what would be done with the room-sized model. He could put it in storage, or actually, probably, just leave it where it was. Really, despite the whole expectations of college, Gansey knew he wouldn’t be leaving Henrietta until he’d found Glendower.

 

They were just so close. Clearly, something was happening here. The forest, the white pebble raven, the fact that he’d actually died and been reborn on the ley line twice. Glendower was there, was just out of reach, and Blue had been sent to him and to Adam so that they and Ronan could continue, could find him.

 

Ronan’s door opened. He had his raven with him, held like a bird of prey on his wrist. Chainsaw was now big enough that she looked like a Godzilla in the model town.

 

“Can’t sleep?” he asked, rubbing his buzzed short hair. Gansey shrugged.

 

“Haven’t tried.” Ronan set Chainsaw down on one of the toy cars in the street, and she scratched at the paintwork with her claws.

 

“Er, not to be the voice of reason here but you should.”

 

Gansey looked up at him and the look on his face was utterly blank.

 

“Adam and I died last night.”

 

“Yeah,” Ronan said, “You said.” Gansey’s face lit up with a wild, excited smile.

 

“We’re getting there, Ronan, we’re getting there!” Ronan got a dark look in his eyes and they scrunched up a little. He wrapped one arm around his chest in a tight hold and held out the other for Chainsaw.

 

“Don’t you even,” he said quietly, his voice laced with anger like when he was building up for a fight with his brother, “You both died.”

 

“Ronan,” Gansey said, face falling because it hit him that Adam had _died_ and he had _died_ and that was about as serious as it gets, and since Ronan’s father had died and he had _found_ him… Gansey felt awful.

 

“I know,” Ronan said, and he turned away from Gansey with a twist of his head that seemed to convey his distaste at Gansey’s cavalier attitude as well as his forgiveness.

 

“I’m going to take more care,” Gansey told his retreating back.

 

“You’d better had,” Ronan said, not bothering to turn to talk to him, “Or I’ll fucking kill you myself, Gansey.”

 

\---

 

Adam woke up from his dream clutching at the sheets like they were a garotte. In his head the images had all mixed themselves up together, the memories, the hurt, and he had been dead again. Only this time it hadn’t been a burst of energy, or lightning, or whatever the hell it was that had ripped through the stone circle that Gansey had tried to save him from, but his father and a well-aimed blow to the temple. Adam had felt cold, and pain, blossoming from his head and throughout his entire body. But most of all, and this was the worst, he had felt fear. Fear that stopped him even breathing right, it felt like.

 

And he knew it wasn’t real. He’d been dead, he knew what it felt like. Like nothing, like a sudden silence after a concert of noise. But still, after dreams like this he hated his tiny little bedsit. Hated the single glazed windows that let out even his body heat so there was frost on the inside of the windows. He hated the road noise from outside and the knowledge that came with it, and the complete lack of other noise, that he was the only person within his four walls.

 

Sometimes he wished he could have swallowed his pride and gone to live with Gansey and Ronan. Taken it as, like, a loan or something. To be repayed when he’d graduated, or maybe with grunt work for the Glendower search. He could do that. And then he’d have someone to wake up and talk to until his head got back to normal. And, if Gansey was doing his insomniac thing, he wouldn’t even have to wake anyone. They could talk until they could both sleep.

 

But then he’d be indebted to Gansey, and Gansey of all people, he didn’t want to become indebted to.

 

That girl, though. Blue Marshall, he was indebted to her. She had brought him back to life, she had brought Gansey back to life, she was- Well, she was pretty incredible. Adam thought about her for a while, about her scrappy temper, her messy dark hair. He found himself smiling despite the events of the day and, with that low level warmth in his chest, he rolled over and he tried to sleep.

 

\---

 

They were walking idly through the woods when they found it. It, definitely an it, a picked-clean skull and a ribcage draped in long polyester fibres and a very familiar raven badge. The whole white grave scene was half buried in autumn leaves. Ronan rocked back on his heel from where he was about to step on a brittle femur.

 

“Well shit,” he said. Gansey walked forward and he knelt beside the body, brushing the leaves off the top of the bones.

 

“It’s got to be, what, ten years old?” Adam said, the only one standing away from the disturbing site. His jaw was set, his arms folded. He didn’t like where this quest was going, but he didn’t see they had much choice but to keep going.

 

Gansey poked through the mess that used to be his clothing.

 

“No I.D.” he said. “I wonder who this guy was?” Adam turned back towards the car.

 

“We could check the school paper records. I’m pretty sure a guy going missing would make the front page.” Ronan sighed in anticipation, but Gansey simply shook his head.

 

“No, that would only tell us some of the story.” He looked at them both, the very points of two fingers on one white rib.

 

“We need Blue.”

 

\---

 

“Oh no,” Blue said, tearing off her apron to try to escape the cafe, “No, don’t you dare.”

 

Gansey held his hands up, flanked by Adam on his left and a boy Blue didn’t know on his right. He was trying to seem as unthreatening as possible, but that wasn’t working particularly well for him, not with the new boy, who had a tattoo sprouting up the back of his neck, a couple of scars scattered over the visible parts of his skin. His hair was cut short like a thug’s. He looked like he could break someone’s bones. Like he _had_ broken someone’s bones.

 

Blue stood in the doorway to their private areas and stood her ground.

 

“We’re not here to do something stupid,” Gansey told her, “We’re not here for any contact.”

 

“It’s not safe to have anything to do with you,” Blue said tersely, “Not safe for you. If I slip-”

 

“We just need one thing,” Gansey said, “Please?”

 

“Told you she’d say no,” the new guy muttered. Blue folded her arms and she had half a mind to just leave them to it, between his lack of faith and Gansey’s weird need to assert his rule, even over her.

 

“We found a body on the ley line.” Blue dropped her stance in pure shock.

 

“A body?” she cried, and then she laughed, “Oh, I see, so I’m some sort of performing monkey for you, you just direct me at a body and get me to do my thing.”

 

“No,” Gansey said, and Blue was gratified to see him blushing.

 

“Well yeah, kinda,” the thug boy said.

 

“Ronan,” Gansey sighed, “You’re not helping.”

 

“No,” Blue said, “Go on, one of you. I’d like to see how using me for talents I never asked for counts as a legitimate reason to visit.”

 

Gansey blushed even redder.

 

“We want to know how he died,” he said, “And we figured-”

 

“I could zap him and ask,” Blue said, and then she stopped because, huh, that was actually not a bad idea for what to do with her weird power. “So how far away is the body?” Gansey’s eyes lit up in a way Blue definitely did not think she wanted to see again. He was so excited, brimming over with it, and it animated him in a way that was completely different from the arrogant rich boy persona she’d seen before. Like he had a split personality, or something. She liked this personality a lot better. So she wished he’d switch back.

 

“We can drive you, it’s ten minutes out.”

 

“Fine,” Blue said, dropping her pinafore on the table, “But I sit on the back seat with…” she gave him a sideways look, “Ronan.”

 

\---

  


“You didn’t tell me it was like a decade old!” Blue accused. Gansey looked a little abashed.

 

“Can you not do it?” he asked.

 

“Well I’ve never tried something this dead.”

 

“So maybe you should try,” Ronan said, looking between them all, more than a little exasperated. Blue rolled her eyes and pulled herself together and touched the temple of the skull. For a moment nothing happened, and then. She couldn’t tell how it happened but he was there. Gulping and trying to stand.

 

“Who’s timing?” Blue asked, staying back to make sure she didn’t touch the boy again, accidentally. Gansey and Ronan swept in, holding the boy down to try to stop him from moving too much, from upsetting himself.

 

“Fifty four seconds,” Adam said obediently.

 

“Hi there,” Blue said softly, in her best waitress voice, “We’re going to help you. What’s your name?”

 

“Noah,” the boy said briefly, “I remember, he was right there-”

 

Noah pointed, shuddering, quiet. His eyes were wide, pupils black around a tiny ring of indeterminate colour. He seemed to be around their age, or a little younger. He looked very pale, and very small.

 

“Who was?” Blue asked urgently, “Who killed you?”

 

“He-” Noah gaped, gasping as if he was forgetting how to breathe, “He _killed_ me? I’m _dead_?”

 

“Twenty seconds,” Adam said.

 

“Quickly, please,” Blue said, “We only have one shot, who was it?”

 

“Shot,” Noah said, his voice absent, “That’s not right, there wasn’t a gun.”

 

“ _Who,_ Noah?” Blue repeated.

 

“My friend,” Noah said, to the background noise of Adam’s voice, T- minus ten, nine, eight… “His name is-”

 

“Time,” Adam called, and Blue darted forwards to touch Noah’s hand. She felt him, cold, for the briefest of moments, and then all that lay beneath her fingers was bone.

 

“Shit,” Ronan said. It seemed to sum up what everyone was thinking pretty accurately.

 

“So,” Blue said, standing up and rounding on the boys, “Explain to me why it is that you didn’t call the police? That you’re not calling the police now?” The three of them looked between each other. Adam shrugged. Ronan seemed to do the same, just with his eyes. And Gansey took a half step forwards.

 

“This place, and the forest where you found us, they’re part of a ley line. That’s a line of energy which-”

 

“I know, I know,” Blue said, waving Gansey off, “I can read, you know. It’s a piece of shit superstition where sacred sites are supposed to be linked by a straight line of energy or something.”

 

“Yes,” Gansey said, with a little smile that hinted at the abundant curiosity beneath, “Only it’s not just some hippy nonsense. It’s real.”

 

“Right,” Blue said, the look she gave the three of them scathing. Adam looked away.

 

“Don’t believe it?” Gansey said, “Then how would you explain the forest and your Midas touch?”

 

“Midas turned things to gold, not-”

 

Blue frowned. The act of putting what she could do into words exposing the sheer absurdity of it.

 

“Yeah, fair enough. So, a ley line, huh? And you guys get off on playing around with it or something?”

 

Gansey grinned, full on grinned with the opportunity to explain.

 

“How much do you know about Welsh history?” he asked.

 

\---

 

Cut to a few hours later, the three boys clustered around a frilly little table, Gansey’s artwork of a notebook out in front of them, pointed towards Blue who was pacing a little way off.

 

“So you want the favour?” she asked, frowning over at the three of them, “That’s why you killed yourselves trying to, er, activate the ley line?” Gansey shrugged a little. It was a hard thing to do; the table was small and Adam and Ronan were clustered close around him.

 

“I just want to find Glendower,” he said. To be proven right, Blue thought. Ronan seemed to agree, his expression uncaring, like he was just along for the ride. But Adam looked different. There was a hardness in his eyes, a desperation. He wanted that favour - there was something the world couldn’t give him, that he couldn’t get himself, that he was counting on finding an ancient Welsh king for.

 

“And besides,” Gansey continued, knocking Blue out of her thoughts, “It wasn’t me who tried to kill myself. It was Adam.” Blue nodded, her theory confirmed. He wanted something so badly he’d nearly die for it.

 

“I didn’t think it would kill me,” Adam said, defensive. Gansey smiled, this an argument well worn enough now that he could find amusement in it.

 

“What else is _I sacrifice myself to the ley line_ supposed to mean?” Gansey asked.

 

“That I’d have to serve it or something,” Adam murmured, but he stopped talking when he looked up at Ronan, tense and uncomfortable. Blue wondered what had happened there, and then chastised herself for thinking it, before realising that any attempt to stay away from the boys now was irrelevant. She was far too interested now.

 

“Okay,” Blue said, breaking the silence, “If you want my help there are a few rules now. Ronan, you’re fine, but I want a foot gap between me and Adam or Gansey. I’ve brought you back, I don’t want to kill you again.”

 

“Noted,” Adam said, and there was an earnestness in his voice that made Blue smile.

 

“So you will join us?” Gansey asked, evidently pleased. Blue raised an eyebrow, but his reaction made her smile, too; his obvious pleasure in the chase was infectious.

 

“Someone needs to make sure you guys don’t do anything stupid again,” Blue said with a sigh.

 

“That’s great!” Gansey said, unable to hide his happiness now, “Then there’s something I want to show you tomorrow.”

 

\---

 

It was Ronan who picked her up from the cafe the next morning. He had brought his car, obviously new and painted black. Blue didn’t know much about cars, but as she watched it idling on the street she could almost feel the atmosphere around it dying, bit by bit, with each second the engine stayed on. She hurried downstairs and dropped into the passenger seat.

 

“What are we doing?” she asked Ronan, “Do I need to change?” He looked her up and down, it was strange, to see someone doing it without even a hint of interest.

 

“You’ll be fine,” he said.

 

“And what are we doing?” she reiterated.

 

“Nice try,” Ronan told her, “But Gansey wants it a secret.”

 

“And he’s your-” Blue started to tease, but Ronan shot her with a hard look.

 

“I follow him, yeah. Seatbelt.”

 

Blue buckled hers up and then Ronan pulled out, driving far too fast down quiet streets, for all of a few minutes until they reached an old factory just moments from the school. When Ronan parked, Blue got out and looked around herself. Everything seemed run-down, disused, the peeling paint on the side of the building reading _Monmouth Manufacturing_ . Blue would have written the place off, except for the other expensive car parked in front of the building. It was bright orange, which Blue loved on sight, and seemed to be something older than Ronan’s car, probably one that people consider _classics._

 

“You live here?” she asked. Ronan nodded as he got out of the car.

 

“Not Adam, but yeah.” Blue nodded. Pieces were falling into place, Adam’s accent, his fraying jumper.

 

“C’mon,” Ronan told her, “They’re up on the roof.”

 

They climbed up an obviously new staircase from the manufacturing floor to a featureless door, and then past it to another stair, presumably leading to the roof. Blue thought, for a moment, that she shouldn’t be here alone with Ronan, who she barely knew, but she banished the thought. If Ronan tried to do anything to her, she had the power to kill his friends with just a brush past on the crowded street.

 

They made it to the roof in one piece. A little way off, lounging on top of a defunct air conditioning unit, were Gansey and Adam. They waved as Blue came out onto the roof. And further off again, was something really unexpected. It squatted on the roof like it didn’t belong there, all shiny paintwork on an old concrete base. A circle had been painted on the roof, with what Blue presumed was the letter H inside. And right on the crossbar of the H was the helicopter.

 

It wasn’t a particularly big one. Enough room for a pilot and a few passengers. Still, Blue wondered just how many houses in Henrietta she could buy for the price of just one bright new helicopter.

 

Ronan led her straight over to it, Gansey and Adam making to intercept them there. Gansey reached into the helicopter and took out four headsets.

 

“You can fly this thing?” Blue asked, to anyone who cared to answer.

 

“I can,” Gansey said, “We used to go up in it any time we could, trying to find the shape of the ley line. After a while, my sister got sick of taking us and made me get my license.” He smiled brightly. “It’s easier than it looks!”

 

Blue tugged her headset on like everyone else and let Ronan help her into the back seat. Adam and Gansey were in the front, so there was no way she could accidentally touch them.

 

“Seatbelts,” Ronan said again, but he had to help Blue with hers, a four point system she’d never seen before except on movies. And then the engine started, and Blue understood why they needed the headsets. Without them, she didn’t think she would have been able to hear her own thoughts, let alone another’s voice.

 

She felt the helicopter tip, the angle change, and then they were up in the air, easier than falling. Blue had never flown anywhere before, she realised, and that thought made her grip the edge of her seat. Ronan turned to her and just grinned. Cautiously, she risked a look out of the window.

 

They were already higher than Blue had ever been, even in a building. The ground was a dizzying distance away, and still they seemed to climb, the buildings looking like toys in the grass now. But it wasn’t as frightening as it could have been, and Blue looked on in fascination, trying to pick out wherever it was that Gansey was taking them.

 

On cue, Gansey’s voice came over her headset.

 

“Alright, we’re up,” he said, “Blue, we’re looking for landmarks along the ley line, the shape of it isn’t immediately obvious even from the air. We spent months looking for it, actually.”

 

“Okay,” Blue said, having to shout to make herself heard. They travelled a little way out of the town, and Ronan pointed down as Adam spoke.

 

“That Church, down there. It’s old, but not old enough. We think it was built on a site that was already sacred.”

 

Blue nodded, then realised that only Ronan could see her.

 

“Makes sense,” she called.

 

“And there,” Gansey called, “That clearing, there are stones there you only find down at the coast, which corresponds with the theory that Glendower was brought in by the sea.” He was quiet for a moment, keeping the helicopter travelling in the same line.

 

“If you look out further, you should just about be able to see a white glint. It’s more of the same stones, but can you guess where they are?”

 

“The forest,” Blue said, and she didn’t like the way the past few days had been coming together so neatly, like puzzle pieces, “Where my father came from.”

 

They were silent over the headsets from then on, even the boys looking out of the windows like they expected to see something new. After a while, Blue looked back into the cabin to rest her eyes. She looked forward, and while Gansey appeared to be concentrating on flying, both he and Adam had their headsets off, Adam’s dropped around his neck, Gansey’s earpiece turned back against his head so Adam could talk directly into his ear. Blue watched them a little while, and more and more started to fit into place. She looked out of the window again, to give them their privacy, even though they hadn’t noticed she had been looking.

 

When they came upon the forest, Blue almost gasped. It shone in the light, and was unmmistakable in shape. A raven, picked out in stylised white.

 

“Glendower was-” Gansey started.

 

“The Raven King,” Blue filled in, “I remember, you said.”

 

\---

 

Later that night, Blue sat up in bed and rubbed a tiny white pebble between her forefinger and her thumb. She could almost pretend that she felt the ley line’s power running through it. She felt the edges of the stone, smooth, softened by sea water, miles away, and she felt something like Gansey’s excitement.

 

They had touched down near to the raven only briefly, for the boys to show it to Blue. And she’d found it fascinating. The level of the stones was a little lower than that of the grass; it had been carved into the ground first, before being filled in with pebbles. Pebbles that must have been brought upriver, then carried by hand through the forest to the clearing. While the boys hadn’t been looking she’d taken one of the stones, just one from the edge, because she knew she’d need it to remind herself that this was all real, and that it was all linked to her.

 

Blue would meet them the next day, after they all finished with school, to go back to the forest. The boys had concluded that, since the forest had been their stumbling block, the forest must hold the key to Glendower’s location, and to activating the ley line so they could find him. She found she was really looking forward to it, despite herself. And not just to look for the line.

 

Because she was really starting to like the boys’ company. Ronan excepted, they’d been lovely. They’d welcomed her into their group that was already so tightly held together, and they’d filled her in on everything. When it came to their questions, they had valued her opinion, even though she was new, even though she didn’t understand everything yet. They had wanted her there, not just for her power, or because she looked pretty or cool, but because of her. And Adam and Gansey, they’d been great. She had to stay away from them, she knew, but she really liked the way Adam blushed sometimes when Gansey was being especially obtuse, she liked the light in Gansey’s eyes when he talked about the hunt so far and about finding Glendower. She was glad they had each other. She liked watching them together.

 

Settling down into that line of thought, Blue was surprised when her phone started ringing. No one called her on her mobile, except her mother, and she could hear her downstairs, cooking away in the kitchen. Fully expecting a direct sales call, she looked at the screen, only to see Adam’s name. It wasn’t unsurprising; before Ronan had driven her back home the boys had insisted in swapping numbers, but it was a little odd since she’d spent the entire day with them all.

 

“Hi,” she said, answering.

 

“Blue, hi,” Adam said, “I’m glad you picked up.”

 

“No problem,” Blue said, feeling a little guilty about what she’d just been thinking.

 

“I’m really sorry,” he said, “But we’re going to have to reschedule tomorrow. I’d forgotten that we have an exam on Thursday and Ronan… Ronan really needs to study, or they’ll kick him out, and we have so little time left at school.”

 

“It’s okay,” Blue said, but she was disappointed. She’d been looking forward to, well, to seeing the boys again.

 

“But I don’t need to study,” Adam said, “And Gansey is more than capable of holding Ronan down at his desk, so…”

 

“That would be cool too,” Blue filled in, trying to keep her voice calm and collected. She should not get excited about spending time with one of them alone. Especially since she was pretty sure he was spoken for.

 

“Great,” Adam said, “The only thing is, I don’t have a car. I have a bike, though, and it shouldn’t be a hard ride, it’ll just take us longer. But only if-”

 

“I’ve got a bike,” Blue said, “You can just stop by when you’re done with school and we’ll go.”

 

“Okay great,” Adam said. He was nervous, for some reason, Blue could hear his accent really starting to come through, “I’ll see you then.”

 

Blue hung up the phone and tried not to feel excited.

 

\---

 

Blue spent the morning oiling up a bike that hadn’t seen use in years. She hadn’t touched it for so long, she had to google why the wheels weren’t moving. She knew she was supposed to be studying herself, that’s what study leave was for, but she told herself that she was learning practical skills and that was worth more than any exam. Yeah, right.

 

She wouldn’t have concentrated, though. She still had Glendower in her head, and couldn’t stop trying to work out how to find something new from the forest. She was mentally mapping it in her head, where the beak pointed, what places the boys had already covered. By the time Adam arrived, a little early, she was bursting with theories.

 

“You sound like Gansey,” Adam said with a little smile, once she’d finished talking. Blue raised an eyebrow.

 

“I sound better than Gansey.” Shocked, Adam laughed, pink spreading across his nose and his cheeks. Blue watched it bloom.

 

“We’d better leave,” she said, “Or it’ll get dark before we get there.”

 

It was a harder ride than Adam had made it out to be, and when they arrived at the edge of the forest, Blue had a thin line of sweat over her forehead, glistening in a way she was certain was certain was incredibly unattractive. It didn’t matter, though, she told herself. There would be no touching Adam, no anything with Adam.

 

“Let’s go in here,” Adam called to her, turning his bike into a narrow track that led down into the forest, “We haven’t been this way before.”

 

The track was overgrown and long grass stuck between the spokes of Blue’s wheels. The ground was uneven, and it was so uncomfortable that after a while they abandoned their bikes and kept walking. The forest was dark, but thankfully only the dark of afternoon light shadowed over leaves. There seemed to be no time magic now.

 

“So,” Adam said, his voice uncertain, “This is weird, huh, just the two of us on our own?”

 

Blue shrugged.

 

“It’s okay,” she said, “Different.”

 

“How different?” Adam asked. Something in the way he asked made Blue look up and frown at him. Adam set his bike down and ran his hand through his hair.

 

“What do you mean?” Blue prompted.

 

“Like,” Adam cleared his throat, “Date different?”

 

Blue’s frown deepened.

 

“Like, us, being on a date?” she asked.

 

“Maybe, yeah,” Adam said defensively. Blue watched him very carefully as she spoke.

 

“But I thought that you and Gansey-”

 

“ _What_?”

 

“Well, the two of you are so close and, you know, there’s the whole him trying to save you from sacrificing yourself even though it meant certain death for him thing.”

 

Adam blushed at that.

 

“I haven’t thought about it that way.” Blue sighed and stopped herself going over to him.

 

“I want to say yes,” she said, “But if I touch you, if I even hold your hand, you will die. Surely Gansey’s a better choice than me.”

 

“It’s not like that,” Adam said, to which Blue could only raise an eyebrow. “No, I mean, it’s not a choice like that. I’d still like you, even if Gansey and I… whatever. And I don’t even know if I want to… with him. But I do with you.”

 

Blue shook her head, trying to show him just how much it hurt her as well.

 

“I wish we’d met before you died. But now, Adam, I’d be leading you into nothing. It’s not like we just can’t kiss or something, it’s that we can’t even be close.”

 

“I don’t think that matters,” Adam said, immediately, assertively.

 

“Adam-”

 

“No, that’s what I think. I knew we couldn’t touch when I brought you here and I still wanted to do it. Can we not just see each other, and see what happens? If it’s too difficult, we stop, but if it’s going to feel like that then it will however we act.”

 

Blue gave him a little smile. He made it seem so easy.

 

“Okay,” she said, “Okay, we can try. But no trying anything risky. You’re not to die because of me, Adam Parrish.”

 

They walked downhill, in two neighbouring tracks that were more shallow ruts than anything else, almost completely overgrown. They walked until the trees opened out into a small clearing, with a dark shape in the middle. Blue expected a low stone, or something of that like, something ancient. She definitely was not expecting

 

“A car?” Adam sounded shocked, but once Blue looked around properly she recognised the place. She’d been past here, when she’d found Adam and Gansey- when she’d found them dead. They hadn’t passed the car on the way back, but now, they’d just approached from another angle. Adam abandoned his bike and jogged the rest of the way over.

 

“It’s been here a long time,” he said, fingering the rust around the wheel arches and the ivy that grew through the axle, the tree in the middle of the engine.

 

“I’ve seen this before,” Blue said, “But I came a different way, when I found you and Gansey.”

 

“I’m going to have a look inside,” Adam said. It took a few tries, with his foot braced against the bonnet, but he managed to prise the driver side door open. He leant over and opened the car door. Blue cleaned off the window with her shirt sleeve and looked inside. There was general car litter, laying over the seats and in the footwells. Nothing identifying, though.

 

“Aha!” Adam called. Blue looked over.

 

“I found his license,” Adam told her, and his face dropped into an expression of pure shock, skin going pale.

 

“Noah,” he said, “This car belonged to Noah Czerny.”

 

“Adam,” Blue said quietly, “I don’t like this one bit.” Adam shook his head, but Blue could tell it was in agreement.

 

“I think I need to get to the school, and find out what’s going on. And then I think we might have to talk to the police.”

 

Adam slipped the license into his back pocket. Blue watched him do it.

 

“Gansey won’t want to talk to the police,” she said. Adam frowned at the mention of Gansey, but she continued with a slow realisation.

 

“I don’t think I want to, either. Not if it means showing them this place.”

 

Adam hummed, tracing the thin outline of the license through his jeans pocket.

 

“We can find a way around that, I’m sure.”

 

“Okay,” Blue said, wary. “First, let’s get out of here.” Adam led the way, clearly agreeing, and Blue wondered if his silence showed the effect the revelation was having on him, if it was a sign of how shaken he was. She didn’t really mind, though. He walked quickly and she was glad for it.

 

It seemed to take longer to leave the forest than walking in, perhaps because they weren’t talking or perhaps, worrying Blue for the first time, because the forest didn’t want them to leave.

 

The sky was darkening by the time Blue and Adam found the road again. Blue looked at Adam, and he was gripping his bike handles so hard his fingers were turning white. It felt a little better for Blue, out of the forest, closer to home, but Adam was still clearly worried.

 

“So will you talk to Gansey?” Blue asked. Adam looked over at her, surprised. It took him a while to process what she’d said, to remember their earlier conversation.

 

“I don’t think so,” he said.

 

“I think you should,” she told him decisively. Adam sighed.

 

“Alright,” he said, “And if I do, what then?” Blue gave him a little smile, hiding self deprecatingly behind her bike.

 

“You get something you deserve.”

 

“We’ve been through this,” Adam said, sighing, “I’m happy with the not touching-”

 

“But more,” Blue said, “You could have more, too. In addition.”

 

Adam laughed, and Blue was so pleased that she’d managed to distract him from his fear or his thoughts.

 

“Like, what’s the word, polyamory?”

 

“And why not?” Blue asked, challenging. Adam clearly didn’t know what to make of that so he laughed again.

 

“I don’t even-”

 

“Then talk to him,” Blue said with a smile.

 

“Maybe,” Adam agreed, and Blue knew he’d said it just to keep her happy, but at least she’d planted the seed. Because she could barely believe that two people with that much chemistry hadn’t at least tried anything.

 

\---

 

Sometimes, because it was closer than his little rented room, Adam dropped by Monmouth Manufacturing in the evening for takeaway pizza after work. He had a key, but he maintained it was for convenience, and for feeding Chainsaw and things when Ronan and Gansey were away on investigations that he couldn’t afford a part of. He usually knocked.

 

Tonight, though, there was no answer. Adam let himself in, phone in one hand to send off the usual order, key in the other. There was a little squark from Chainsaw, but otherwise nothing. To the back of the room, the window out to the fire escape hung open, and Adam assumed Ronan had headed out for a smoke. He grumbled about being relegated outside, but he still followed Gansey’s no lit cigarettes in the apartment rule. Despite his protest, Adam was pretty certain he liked the cold of the night.

 

There was light showing under the bathroom door; Gansey, he presumed.

 

“It’s Adam,” he called, “I’m ordering pizza.” There was a muffled response from the bathroom, and none from outside. Adam clicked the button on the app on his phone and ordered.

 

The room was messy. Gansey, for all the time he found himself with when he couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night, seemed unable to actually put anything away. Adam cleared himself a space on a chair by the desk and looked over the crowd of papers and charts over the surface of it. From what he could tell, Gansey had been helping Ronan study Civil War history, while reading up on incidents of deaths on let lines. Adam hummed in interest, skim reading through some highlighted passages while he waited for the pizza.

 

There was a sound from behind him. Adam looked up, expecting Ronan, wreathed in smoke.

 

Instead, he came face to face with Gansey. His hair was wet, curling up around his ears. He wore nothing but a white fluffy towel, and he was still damp from the shower. Adam looked up at him and he kind of wished Gansey would tighten the towel, it looked half ready to slip off his waist. And then he found himself wondering what would happen if the towel were to fall.

 

He never thought much about how Gansey looked. He certainly wasn't handsome, but he looked good for a teenage boy. He wasn't overtly muscled, but the search for Glendower had kept him fit. He was tanned, and smooth, and he looked weirdly suave. He had that confidence about him that made old, gnarled James Bond actors send women into swoons, or whatever, and Gansey clearly had no idea he had it.

 

Adam swallowed, and he looked away.

 

“Hi, Adam,” Gansey said, clueless, “You ordered pizza?”

 

“Yeah,” Adam said, directing his words at the desk, “Got the usual. Is Ronan in?”

 

“He went up to the roof,” Gansey said. He leant over Adam’s shoulder, looking at his papers, and Adam shivered. Gansey smelt of mint, but it wasn't as strong as usual, overlaid by citrus shower gel. Adam shuffled away a little, uncomfortable now like he’d never been around Gansey.

 

“You wanna go put some clothes on?” Adam asked him. Gansey shrugged, clearly not really listening, frowning down at the papers.

 

“Gansey?” Adam prompted.

 

“Oh,” Gansey said, and Adam found it a little easier to breathe with some space between the two of them. Adam resolutely kept looking at the desk.

 

“So I asked Blue out earlier,” he called back. Gansey hummed in response. There was the rustle of clothing, and Adam tried very hard not to think about what that meant. “She said something weird.”

 

“What did she say?” Gansey asked. He didn’t sound particularly interested, but Adam continued.

 

“She said she thought we were together.”

 

“Huh.” Adam nearly hit his head against the desk. He’d been hoping for more of a response than that.

 

“I don’t know where she got that from,” he tried. Gansey hummed behind him, then Adam started as a chair was pulled out next to him, and Gansey sat down. Adam looked up at him, trying to keep his face blank.

 

“Kind of makes sense,” Gansey said thoughtfully, “She did find us dead in a forest together. There are other explanations, but yeah, I can see where she got it from.”

 

“But it’s weird, right?” Adam said, “We’re not, you know…”

 

“But we're close,” Gansey said with a shrug. Adam felt something strangely like disappointment at Gansey's complete lack of concern and stood up to pace away. This shouldn't have been bothering him like it was. But as it was, it felt as if Gansey just didn't notice him like he should, as if despite trying to sacrifice himself to the ley line, despite all the work he'd done for the Glendower search, he was unimportant. He held himself stiff and uncomfortable, facing the window.

 

“Adam,” Gansey said quietly, “This is upsetting you.” Adam shrugged tightly.

 

“What did she say?” Gansey asked, “When you asked Blue out, what did she say?”

 

“She was weird about it,” Adam told him, “But she said yes.”

 

“So you got what you wanted,” Gansey said. Adam shrugged again. He did not want to look like an idiot, especially when he didn't actually know what he wanted.

 

There was a hand on his shoulder, touch soft, but he still tried to shrug it off. Gansey’s fingers tightened on his shoulder. He looked up at Adam, and he looked like he knew more of what was going on than even Adam did. There was something in Gansey's eyes that looked far too much like pity.

 

“I could kiss you, if you'd like,” Gansey said. Adam couldn't work out what meant more; how much he wanted to try, or how much Gansey's offer sounded like just another gift he could give Adam rather than something genuine. The want must have shown on his face though, because Gansey came round to stand in front of him and stood on his tiptoes. Adam’s breath caught, and Gansey smiled. Gansey leant in, eyes closing, and Adam froze, caught looking at where Gansey’s eyelashes brushed his skin.

 

Gansey held there for a single heartbeat, but it felt like the longest moment in Adam’s life. Eventually, Gansey pressed in, and Adam couldn’t do anything, couldn’t think- Gansey was so warm, his lips a little dry, the habitual smell of mint on his breath. Each point of contact between them, their lips, Gansey’s hand on Adam’s shoulder, felt like fire. Like how Adam imagined Blue’s final touch. Distilled, ardent; deadly.

 

Perturbed by Adam’s lack of response, Gansey started to pull back, to rock down onto his heels. And Adam still couldn’t think, but he felt - and he felt that he couldn’t let Gansey stop touching him. He flung an arm around Gansey’s waist to stop him from stepping back.

 

And then he kissed back. It was a rough thing, too hard, their lips squashed between their teeth. Gansey tipped his head back, Adam tilted his to one side, and then somehow they were kissing properly. Adam had Gansey’s lower lip between his then Gansey, taking some sort of control, licked out over the pointed curve of his upper lip and down. Adam opened his mouth cautiously, and did not regret it. Gansey’s tongue in his mouth was both so much more frightening and so much better. His arm tightened around Gansey, Gansey’s hand crept up into his hair. It worked, like they’d been doing this forever.

 

Neither of them had the breath for much but it was Adam who had to pull back first, take a deep pull of the cold air from the window.

 

“I almost didn’t think you were going to-”

 

“Yeah,” Adam said, failing to meet Gansey’s eye, “Me neither.”

 

“That was really good.” Adam couldn’t help but smile at Gansey’s declaration.

 

“Oh? You liked it?” Gansey’s face crinkled up in a frown and, for the first time, Adam recognised the pull he felt in his stomach at that sight as the need to kiss him. He almost did.

 

“Did I not sound like I would?” he asked and then, eyes widening, “I did it again, didn’t I?”

 

Adam nodded, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to, as usual with Gansey. It was both exhilarating and incredibly frustrating.

 

“It would be just like me to ruin this with something I said wrong,” Gansey said, frowning again. It was a sorrowful thing, and Adam couldn’t allow that to happen. Not with the mad fluttering of his heart still going on. He leant in and kissed Gansey once more.

 

There was a sound from the window and they broke apart, but not soon enough for Ronan to have missed what was going on.

 

“Well finally,” he huffed, making straight for Chainsaw.

 

\---

 

“Still no Czerny,” Blue said, “And I’ve done a year of papers.”

 

“I’ve got his name,” Gansey said, sounding more than a little demoralised, “But it’s on a list of high-achievers in Latin.”

 

“That makes sense if he’s been to Cabeswater,” Ronan commented.

 

“But unfortunately it doesn’t reveal much about his death,” Adam said from his position as lookout. See, they weren't supposed to bring any outsiders into the Aglionby library, even right into the back with the two computer terminals of digitised school newspaper records. Adam was, however, the only one who seemed concerned about this. Blue found it quite sweet.

 

They had worked out from Noah's license what dates he was enrolled in the school, and were heading in from there, looking for his friends, his interests, his death.

 

Or at least Blue and Gansey were. Ronan was lounging on the desk, bored.

 

They worked through another few pages. Gansey took off his glasses and rubbed at his temples. Adam was disturbed at the movement and stepped over, behind him, to kiss his forehead. Blue looked up, smiling indulgently.

 

Ronan, bored, leant over Blue’s shoulder to look at the screen.

 

“So while you three were being disgusting, I found Czerny.”

 

Blue turned around quickly to look at the headline in front of her.

 

 _Aglionby Student Still Missing_ , it read, then, _After three months missing, the Czerny family are starting to lose hope in the ability of the local police to find their son, and have hired private detective Jessica Jones. In an exclusive statement, Jones told our reporter “At this point, with no ransom demand forthcoming, and no recent usage of Noah’s credit cards, we have to assume that he is dead.”_

 

“She was right,” Ronan said flatly. Blue sighed a little.

 

“That poor family. Not knowing, all this time.”

 

“They’ll know soon,” Gansey said, “We’ve just got to find out who did it.”

 

“He said it was his friend,” Blue said sadly.

 

“If you read on,” Ronan said, “Instead of chattering like a mothers’ meeting, you’d know that we now have a suspect.”

 

_Jones is conducting interviews of those closest to Czerny, including his closest friend, Barrington Whelk. “He was such a trusting boy,” Whelk said of Czerny at the time of his disappearance, “Anyone could have taken him.”_

 

“Wait,” Adam said, “Whelk? As in our teacher, Whelk?”

 

“Must be the same guy,” Ronan shrugged.

 

“But look,” Gansey said suspiciously, “The quote. He’s using the past tense. He knew Czerny was dead.”

 

\---

 

“I bet his fingerprints are all over that car,” Adam said.

 

“But if we show the police the car we’ll be letting them into Cabeswater. They’ll notice something wrong, or forensics will, and the place will be crawling with scientists. If we show the car to the police, we lose Glendower.”

 

Adam glared at Gansey a little for that comment.

 

“We can’t let him get away with this,” Ronan said, “I can’t sit in Latin and just watch him carry on-”

 

“You are not taking this into your own hands,” Adam told him.

 

“We need to get him to confess,” Blue said, “It’s the only way, without showing Cabeswater to the world.”

 

“He isn’t very likely to want to do that,” Ronan said. Blue rolled her eyes.

 

“I didn’t think I’d just magically solved the problem here. But it’s a better thought than nothing.”

 

“It is,” Gansey said indulgently, “We just have to work out how to make him.”

 

“He must be interested in Glendower, right?” Blue said, “Or at least the ley line. How else would he have found his way to Cabeswater? It’s not the obvious choice for a secluded murder spot, it’s too much of a commute.”

 

“Right,” Gansey said, a little too pleased with the way she’d said that.

 

“So maybe we can bait him with Glendower,” she suggested.

 

“Easier said than done,” Ronan said, raising an eyebrow as he looked at Gansey, “Someone tells everyone he meets about Glendower.”

 

\---

 

“Sir,” Gansey said, clutching his books to his chest and doing his best to look small and inexperienced. It wasn’t difficult. The thought that his teacher had committed murder was more than enough to make him nervous.

 

“What is it, Gansey?”

 

“I came across a few Latin phrases I couldn’t translate in an old book the other day. I was wondering if you could help?”

 

“I’m your teacher, Gansey, not your personal translation service,” Whelk said, but he took the piece of notepaper Gansey held out to him. It contained interesting words, like _consecrated ground_ and _energy reawakening_. Gansey gave him just long enough to skim read before fumbling with his books, a practiced maneuver that looked completely believable. He let a single sheet of paper slip onto Barrington Whelk’s desk, on top of his pile of papers to grade, and pretended not to notice its absence. It was a handwritten page of notepaper, as if he’d transcribed a book. The words were Ronan’s, translated to Latin from Blue’s creative writing. It contained instructions for awakening the ley line, fictitious of course, that involved the corpse of the sacrifice.

 

Whelk’s eyes went wide as he looked at the pages. As Gansey continued to fumble, he slid the second, full page onto his lap.

 

“I will look at these for you, but it will take me some time. Teaching you all is more work than you’ve ever done in your life.”

 

Gansey doubted that Whelk put all the effort he should into teaching, but he held his tongue.

 

“Thank you, sir,” he said, “That would be very useful.” And, plan fully executed, he left the classroom.

 

\---

 

They waited for him under the cover of the darkness, sheltered and shielded by the trees. The leaves’ rustling, today, seemed to be protective. They waited for midnight, huddled in dark blankets, certain that Barrington Whelk would not be looking for them. And, sure enough, at about eleven pm, there was the flash of his torch through the woods, brash and bright. Together, they watched as he walked towards Noah’s body, shovel resting on his shoulder.

 

Blue felt ill, watching it. She wished they could have found a better way to trap Whelk, but they had to get the body away from the ley line. Whelk dumped Noah’s bones into a bag and Blue, throat constricting with horror, reached out to grab Ronan’s hand. He was the only one of the boys who could give any sort of comfort now, she thought. And he let her. He raised his state of the art camera and he started to record. The footage captured how Whelk lit a circle of flaming torches around the hole Noah’s body used to reside in. How he called out the words they had scripted for him.

 

“Noah Czerny, as your killer, I summon your spirit to lead me to the grave of Glendower. In recompense, I will right my wrongs and rebury your body.”

 

He lingered in the clearing awkwardly, when nothing happened. He can’t have expected anything, they had given him no reason to. Soon after, he gathered his equipment and he left.

 

Blue nearly cried out, as he turned away, at the pressure of a hand on her shoulder. She spun, to see Gansey, pressing one gloved hand to her shoulder.

 

“It’ll be alright,” he whispered to her, “We’ll find Noah some justice.”

 

But as they left, now, the trees turned thicker. Leaves and twigs clung to Blue’s clothing, to her hair. Adam beat a path ahead of her, and still the trees turned on her.

 

“It’s the same words as before,” Gansey cried, “The trees, they don’t want you to leave.”

 

“Well will someone tell them that I don’t need their help?” Blue said, “I want to go home.”

 

Her words didn’t seem to need to be translated. As soon as she had spoken, the resistance ended. But she was left with the impression that something terrible was going to happen. And she had been warned.

 

\---

 

Gansey took the footage to the police, as the most law abiding of them all. He had to give a statement - he’d been walking late in the woods, something the police had not believed but had not questioned either, and he’d found his teacher attempting a strange ritual. He’d started filming for the humour of it, but when Whelk had said the word _killer_ , he’d been afraid. That last part, at least, was true. He had been afraid. There was a difference between worrying about magical forces harming you, and your own teacher. And Gansey didn’t think he was going to manage a third death, a third resurrection.

 

He walked back to Monmouth Manufacturing after that. It wasn’t a long walk, and he’d wanted to think. There was a lot to think about.

 

Not just in terms of Glendower, and how to finally find his grave; or even how to check whether Adam’s sacrifice had actually activated the ley line. No, he was thinking about Blue. Thinking about how he’d wanted to pull her to his chest and keep her safe, when he’d seen how frightened she had been, how upset she had been, at Whelk’s admission of murder. She was a great partner for them all, in the investigation. But there was more, he thought. And her relationship with Adam, the way the three of them worked together - it felt meant to be, Gansey thought. Filled with warmth, trying to find the words to tell her what he thought, Gansey hardly noticed what he was doing when he opened the door to his apartment.

 

He did notice the figure perched on one of his cardboard Henrietta buildings, trailing his pale fingers through one of the toy cars on the street. At the sound of Gansey’s dropped bag, he sat up straight, his translucent features smiling.

 

“You called,” Noah Czerny said.

 

\---

 

Blue picked up Gansey’s call just as she was tying on her apron for her shift at work.

 

“Hey, I can’t talk, work’s starting.”

 

“You’re going to want to come over,” Gansey said, “We’re all at Adam’s.” Blue bristled at that. She still hated it when Gansey slipped into his entitled rich boy persona.

 

“Oh? And why’s that?”

 

“His name’s Noah Czerny,” Gansey deadpanned, “And he’s sitting in my living room.”

 

Blue made her excuses to her mother, and got on her bike to cycle over as fast as she could. This was great news, but it was also terrifying. She joined the boys, already assembled, taking a seat on Adam’s swivel chair while the others arranged themselves on his bed. She smiled at the way Adam’s leg pressed all the way down the side of Gansey’s, but they had more important things to be dealing with.

 

“So Gansey, are you the only one who saw him?”

 

Gansey nodded.

 

“I made my excuses and I came straight here,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

 

“Did you ask him why he’s here?” Adam asked. Gansey shook his head.

 

“I really didn’t know what to do.”

 

“Well that’s step one, surely-”

 

Blue was cut off by Gansey’s phone ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket, checked the caller ID.

 

“It’s the police, they’ll probably be wanting to ask some questions. Hold on-” he answered the phone, “Hello, Richard Gansey speaking. Yes. Yes, I see. That is a concern. Well, thank you for letting me know.”

 

As one, they frowned up at Gansey as he hung up the phone, eyes wide.

 

“The police went to arrest Barrington Whelk this afternoon. Only, they can’t find him.”

 

“Do you think he knows we’re the ones who reported him?” Adam asked.

 

“If he comes for us I can take him,” Ronan said. It wasn’t so much a threat, or even a growl, as a matter of fact statement. Blue sighed. Her chest was tight. She thought of the trees, and how they grabbed at her, how they seemed to want to keep her with them.

 

“You have to be careful. All of us do. He’s killed someone, we know he’s capable of that already. If he’s seen the police, if he’s guessed someone set him up, he’ll know it was us.”

 

“No,” Adam said, his hand dropping protectively onto Gansey’s knee, “He’ll know it was you.”

 

“Then we have to act quickly,” Gansey said, “We have to talk to Noah, and see what he wants. Maybe he can help. Maybe he knows where Whelk is.”

 

\---

 

They took Ronan’s car back to Monmouth Manufacturing, Blue in the passenger seat, Adam and Gansey in the back. When Gansey unlocked the door, Noah sat there. Or rather, appeared to - the seat of his trousers hovered just slightly above the top of the model building.

 

“There you all are,” he said, “I was wondering when we were going to get started.”

 

Gansey cleared his throat.

 

“Yes,” he said, “About that. I was wondering - in fact, we all were - what exactly is it that you’re here to do?”

 

Noah grinned at that. For a moment, he actually looked alive.

 

“Well I’m here to take you to Glendower, of course.”

 

“What, now?” Blue asked.

 

“Yes, now,” Adam interrupted, “If Whelk’s out there, he’s looking for Glendower. We have to get there before he does. If we do, he loses. And we’re safe.”

 

“I can do that for you,” Noah said brightly.

 

What followed was absolutely manic. Ronan went straight for his room, to get his things together to leave immediately. Gansey was full of questions that Noah couldn’t hope to answer. Adam stood there looking more than a little taken aback. And Blue, well, she just couldn’t believe that Noah was there, a ghost, with a second life that she hadn’t given to him with her touch. She tried to make contact with his skin, but when she did her fingers just slipped right through. He was cold, like standing in front of the freezers in the supermarket.

 

Through force of will from Ronan alone, they ended up in the car. Noah sat on the passenger seat between Gansey and Adam, like he was another one of their gang. He took them down winding roads, deeper and deeper into the forest. But when they stopped, and Noah paused to get his bearings, another car pulled in behind them.

 

“Stop,” Barrington Whelk called through the open window. “I have a gun, and I’m not afraid to shoot you all.”

 

They stood still. Adam looked to Blue, then to Gansey, then to Ronan. He was coiled for a fight, but there was no target. It was dusk, and little light filtered its way through the canopy. Whelk turned off his headlights, and he was a patch of darkness on darkness. And besides, he had a gun. No one wanted to run the risk of dying. Not when two of them had come so close.

 

“Now,” Whelk said, “You’re going to take me to Glendower.”

 

“Alright,” Gansey said, “Noah, lead the way.”

 

His form glowed a little as he walked, or rather floated, down a narrow path through the trees.

 

“It’s not far,” he said nervously. “Just a little longer.”

 

Blue looked over to Gansey. In the white glow from Noah, she could see the now familiar furrows in his brow. He was chewing hard on his mint leaves. He was thinking.

 

“No,” he said, spinning on his heel all of a sudden.

 

“No?” Whelk asked. He sounded amused.

 

“We’re not going to help you,” Gansey said, “And without us, you have no way of finding Glendower. Noah came to us, not you. So I bet if you kill us, Noah isn’t just going to help you.”

 

“No,” Whelk said, and he was definitely smiling now, Blue could tell. Her skin crawled, and she wanted desperately to reach out to Gansey, to get him to stop, to keep him safe. But she couldn’t risk it. If she touched him and she killed him, that would be just as bad as if he was shot.

 

“No,” Whelk continued, “He won’t. But you will. To keep your friends safe. You see, I don’t need all of you alive. Just one. So you’ll help me, if only to keep your friends alive. I’ll kill them one by one, if not. And I think I’ll start with the new one. This girl.”

 

Whelk levelled the gun at Blue, her features highlighted in horror by Noah’s glow. There was screaming then, from Gansey, and in rage from Ronan, but the terrible action came from Adam. He hurled himself, his whole body, in front of Blue. He stretched out, chest forward, and Blue watched as his body curved around the impact of the bullet.

 

“No!” Blue cried. She rushed forward, but before she could reach out to Adam’s prone body, before she could press her fingers to his wound and stem the bleeding, she caught herself. If she touched him, he’d die for certain. Whatever happened now was better than what she could give. Instead, she crouched next to him.

 

“Adam,” she said, “You shouldn’t have-”

 

“Don’t,” he said weakly. His hands were held over his stomach, over the wound there, like they were trying to hold his guts in. But the blood kept coming, bubbling up. Distantly, Blue was aware of Gansey keeping on talking to Whelk, of Ronan’s overwhelming anger, but she was caught. All she could watch, in Noah’s strange white light, was the movement of Adam’s fingers as he pulled them back to look at the wound. The blood was still coming but, to Blue’s astonishment, something else appeared to be leaving his body. Adam was gasping, holding onto life, his eyes screwed shut in pain.

 

And then there it was. The bullet, a mess of lead, popped itself out of the hole it had ripped in Adam’s stomach and landed on the smoothness of his untouched skin. Underneath the blood, Blue thought she could see, the tissue knitting back together again, growing anew.

 

“Well,” Blue said quietly, “I didn’t expect that. Adam, you’re healing!”

 

His eyes flickered open, and he looked first up at her, then down at his wound. He started to smile, just a little, through the pain.

 

“I am,” he said.

 

With Adam safe, Blue slowly got to her feet.

 

“Enough,” she said darkly, raising her finger to point at Whelk, “That is more than enough.”

 

Neither Gansey nor Ronan were close enough to see, but Whelk, staring straight at her, noticed, and the gun in his hand faltered for a moment. Blue’s eyes turned black, whites and all. And she stepped forwards, around Adam’s body. She held her hand out in front of her, slowly clenching her fist.

 

From the ground, something started to grow. It twisted itself around Whelk’s ankles, and rose from there, holding him. It grew leaves, and stems that wrapped him tighter and tighter, and before he could shake himself free a tree stood before them all, the gun in its branches dropping to its roots.

 

There was stillness for just a moment, as Gansey and Ronan looked to Blue in amazement. And then Blue spoke.

 

“We need to get Adam back home,” she said.

 

\---

 

When Adam woke, it was to a warm pink dawn. Light from the windows flitted over the covers, and on to the main floor where Gansey’s cardboard Henrietta stood. Adam blinked a few times, trying to work out exactly how it was that he got into Gansey’s bed. Had some incredible evening happened? He thought he’d remember if it had. He ran his hands over the covers, feeling out some answer. He was wearing pants, he could feel that, but he was shirtless, except for- He raised the covers, taking note of the bandages around his stomach.

 

As he moved, somewhere off in another room a bell started to ring. Moments later, Ronan fell through the door to his room.

 

“You’re awake,” he said. Adam groaned.

 

“Barely,” he said. He looked at the bandages again. He was starting to remember. There was a gunshot. And some sort of magic.

 

“Blue,” he croaked.

 

“She’s on her way,” Ronan told him. He walked over, tugged the covers back from Adam to look at his bandages. They were still white, still unstained. He put the covers back, satisfied.

 

“You made a surprise recovery there,” Ronan said.

 

“But Blue’s alright?” Adam asked urgently. Ronan grinned.

 

“Yes. And your boyfriend, though I notice you’re not asking about him.”

 

“Where is Gansey?” Adam asked.

 

“He’s in the library,” Ronan said, “Trying to work out what happened to you, if you’re immortal now.” He said it so casually that Adam took a moment to realise what he said.

 

“What do you mean, immortal?”

 

“Oh come on, Adam,” Ronan said, “You should have died.” He paused a moment, sitting on the edge of the bed next to Adam.

 

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

 

“I’ll try not to worry you like that again,” Adam said quietly. Ronan huffed and stood up again at the sound of Chainsaw’s cawing.

 

“They’ll be here soon,” he promised.

 

It was only moments later that the door opened. Gansey hurled himself through, jumping over the cardboard Henrietta to get to Adam. Careless of any potential wound, he threw himself on top of Adam and shoved their lips together in a long, hard kiss. Surprised, Adam’s hands slowly floated over to Gansey’s back to hold him, revelling in the heat of his affection.

 

And when finally Gansey pulled back for breath, Adam looked up to see Blue standing just inside the doorway.

 

“I think you should kiss him again, Gansey,” she said, “He deserves another.”

 

Gansey’s eyes turned warm, and he supported himself on his hands and knees above Adam, and he leaned in for a long, slow kiss. Blue watched, and she couldn’t help but smile.

 

From the corner of the room, someone cleared their throat. Adam had to push Gansey off, incredibly reluctantly, to see who it was.

 

Noah stood in the corner, lightening the room by increments.

 

“So,” he said, “Now he’s better, are you all ready to meet Glendower?”

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a long time in the making. I'm so sorry about the rushed ending, but if I spent any more time on it I'd never get on with anything else, and I have an awful lot of work to do!


End file.
